Religion Notes

By Ari L. Goldman

Published: April 9, 1994

Messengers of Peace

There are many acts of religious devotion besides prayer -- poetry, fasting, music, even athletics. Sri Chinmoy, a spiritual teacher from India and self-styled world ambassador for peace, has done them all. In the last two years he has channeled his spiritual devotion into drawing birds.

Two million of them.

"Each bird is a God-messenger on earth," the 62-year-old mystic said. "When people look at the bird drawings, they feel a sense of peace. What more can I offer to humanity?"

Sri Chinmoy, born in what is now Bangladesh in 1931 and reared as a Hindu, finished the bird drawings in time for the 30th anniversary of his coming to the West. The event will be marked tomorrow at 8 P.M. with a concert, "Music for Peace," at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew in Manhattan at West End Avenue and 86th Street.

Sri Chinmoy heads a meditation center in Jamaica Hills, Queens, where he encourages followers to pursue lives of action and service while enjoying inner lives of prayer and meditation.

He sketches his birds quickly and simply, and does thousands a day. They are done in an array of colors with ball point pens, felt tip markers, acrylic paint, rainbow crayons and metallic pens on acid-free paper, canvas, graph paper, white cotton fabric, Japanese rice paper and other materials. Some birds are made up of hundreds or even thousands of smaller birds. On a banner that is 32 feet long and 5 feet wide, he has sketched 96,588 birds. Other canvases have only one bird.

His first million bird drawings are on exhibit at a four-story gallery in Ottawa. Selections from the collection had earlier been on exhibit at Kennedy International Airport in New York, the Mall Gallery in London, the Unesco offices in Paris and at galleries and art festivals around the world. The bird drawings are not for sale.

"These birds are flying in the firmament of freedom," Sri Chinmoy said, "and the source of freedom is peace." At Home With Prayer

Americans are far more likely to pray at home than in a church, synagogue or mosque, and the preferred place of worship in the home is at one's bedside or in bed itself.

These are among the findings of a survey done by the Gallup Poll for a Life magazine cover story last month called "The Power of Prayer: How Americans Talk to God." The full survey results were made public this week by Gallup.

"Although less dramatic than the sectarian passions of the Middle East and hardly as exuberant as Russia's religious revival, spiritual fervor is simmering in the U.S., too," the magazine said.

The Gallup Poll confirmed earlier surveys that found Americans to be a prayerful people, with 87 percent praying at least once a week. But the survey added some details not normally asked.

Of those who pray, for example, only 10 percent said they prayed in a house of worship. Virtually all the rest is done at home. Of those who pray at home, 34 percent said they pray in or near their beds.

What do people pray for? Ninety-eight percent said they pray for their family, 92 percent for forgiveness and 23 percent for victory in a sports event. Only 5 percent pray that harm befall someone else.

Have their prayers been answered? Ninety-five percent of the respondents said yes, but that did not mean they all got what they prayed for; most said that prayer made them more peaceful or more hopeful. Sixty-two percent said they actually got what they had asked for, while 86 percent said they believe their prayers made them better people.

The survey, of a representative national sample of 688 adults, was conducted last Dec. 17-19. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus four percentage points. More Catholic Schooling

Enrollment in the nation's Roman Catholic schools has increased for the second consecutive year, apparently breaking a steady decline that lasted more than two decades, officials of the National Catholic Education Association announced this week.

The increase of more than 8,000 students in the 1993-94 school year followed an increase of 17,000 in 1992-93. Total enrollment in the nation's 8,700 elementary and secondary schools, run by Catholic parishes, dioceses and religious orders, stands at a little more than 2.6 million.

That figure has held generally steady over the last six years, with minor increases and decreases, after dropping sharply from the mid-1960's, Catholic school officials said. In 1965, enrollment in Catholic schools in the United States stood at 5.5 million.

At the organization's annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., officials attributed the stabilized enrollment to wider promotion of Catholic schooling among parents, renewed support of Catholic education by the Vatican and American bishops, and financial help from business and civic leaders in many big cities.

Drawing: A few of the two million birds that Sri Chinmoy has sketched.